I don’t see the connection between your ant/boy example and the series of wars and conflicts between Israel and the surrounding nations and organisations (Egypt, Palestine, Hamas, Lebanon, hesbollah, Iran, Jordan) let’s say since 1948. Would you elaborate on that?
I’m not very deep in the conflict, so please correct me. To me it looks like Israel is surrounded by states and organizations whose aim is to get rid of Israel because they are not Arab - hence Israel’s strong and expensive military. Israel on the other side is rigid on the status of the occupied palestinian territories and threatens to destroy everybody who dares to attack them. And they did that after the attacks in 2023, including all the war crimes they committed.
No party did nearly enough to defuse the situation before 2023. And the result is another round of human suffering and more hate and anger. That’s why I said: everyone is the asshole here.
See? There it is. The cultivated thought of groups with insurmountable differences - in this case a theological belief, it could as well be the color of the skin or some way of life. The forming of arbitrary groups, sides, us and them. It’s just an arbitrary classification, there is no difference between jews or muslims that hinders them to live next to each other.
(It’s more complicated than that yes. There are always shades of grey.)